Page 40 of Her Billionaire Hero
“I’ll do all I can. I want to find her too, you know.”
Ending that call, I called the police in Elgin. “Elgin Police Department, how can I direct your call?”
“I need to talk to an officer as soon as possible, please.” I wasn’t sure if they would help me yet or not, but I needed all the help I could get.
“Please hold.” I waited while the call was transferred, and soft music played in my ear.
“This is Officer Stark. How can I help you?”
“This is Baldwyn Nash. Your office received a call this morning around five from my girlfriend’s father’s phone. A female voice was calling out for help, asking someone to ping the phone. I need your help to find Richard Manning and his daughter, Sloan Rivers. Her ex-husband may have kidnapped them both and be holding them somewhere in your town. His name is Preston Rivers. Is there any way you can get going on this now?”
“Now?” he asked almost as if that would be impossible. “Sir, we’ve been working on this case since the call came in this morning.”
Thank you, God!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sloan
With no idea what happened after Preston broke my father’s cell phone, I woke up to find myself lying in the grass in the backyard as the sun was leaving the sky. The way my head hurt had me thinking that he’d knocked me out for the entire day.
Craning my neck to look around, I saw two hills of fresh dirt, one smaller than the other. “Preston?”
“Shut up, Sloan,” came his voice from the other side of the smaller mound. Some dirt flew up on top of it and I saw that he was digging a hole on the other side. “I’m too busy to talk to you right now.”
Moving my head, I checked and found I was still tied up and couldn’t do more than roll around. The larger pile of dirt had to be covering my father’s body, as Preston had surely killed him already.
I tried not to look at it or think about my father. I had to do something to get Preston to stop what he was doing. “I’ll do the talking then, babe. See, I’ve been doing some thinking and I want us to give it another chance. I’ve been stubborn lately and that’s on me. You’ve been right all along. It was stupid of me to get a degree in a man’s field. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I’m glad you came to your senses, Sloan.” He kept digging though.
“Yes, me too. See, now you and I can start over—start fresh. I was thinking about how much you wanted us to have babies and I thought about going to see a specialist to help us get pregnant. Would that make you happy?” I prayed he’d say yes.
“I’ve forgotten about that dream, Sloan.”
Damn.
“Well, un-forget it.” I had to get him thinking about the future—a future with me in it. “Lots of people have issues conceiving. And lots of doctors make tons of money helping them out. You’ve got plenty of money. We could do this, Preston. We could start our family. You and me and some little babies. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
“It would’ve been.” He kept on digging, not even slowing down.
I had to try harder. “I love you, you know. I always have—always will. I just needed you to remind me of how much I love you. Do you still love me?”
“I do.” Yet, he kept shoving that shovel into the ground, making the hole deeper.
“Then let’s give us another chance, babe.” I tried my best to sound excited even though I was lying through my teeth. “I want to come home—to our house—with you. I want to move back into our bedroom. No more sleeping in separate rooms. That’s how you wanted it. I want to please you, Preston, I really do.”
“Good. It would please me if you would shut up.” He stopped digging and stepped out of the hole he’d dug. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he moved over a few feet then plunged the shovel back into the ground.
A third grave?
Of course, some people who murdered their spouses killed themselves as well. That had to be his plan. Not that I was going to ask or mention anything about that.
Acting as if he was merely digging in the garden, I went on, “If you don’t want me to move back into the house because you’re afraid there will be bad memories there, we can always move somewhere else. Hell, we don’t even have to stay in Austin. We could move out of the country.”
He had said something about wanting to leave the country and move to Tahiti or something. He had at least one murder in his past he’d want to hide from the authorities over. Staying put in Austin, or Texas for that matter, wouldn’t be possible for him at this point.
He dropped the shovel and I held my breath as he turned to actually look at me. “Can’t you see what’s going on here, Sloan?”
